With the Granada football season coming to an end, the coaches from each level were asked why they believed they were successful in their season. The results for all three levels of Matador football were: the JV team went undefeated for the second time in a row, the freshmen team finished in second with a record of 8-2, and varsity with a record of 4-6 and qualified for the playoffs.

The freshman team was led by Coach Silva and his other staff members. They had a great season with a final game score of 35-0 against the cross-town rivals Livermore Cowboys. This was Coach Silva’s first year as the head coach for the freshman team.

Coach Silva talked about the Livermore game. “It is going to be fun playing against their team. The players grew up together and will have the bragging rights,” said Silva. He also talked about the team improving, “Most of our players had never played football before so there was a lot of growth all throughout the season. And for the coaching staff, it just got easier when the football team really came together.”

Starting freshman quarterback Jack Badger said, “Our team had improved a lot from our first game to the game against Livermore. We would pick each other after each play. It was kind of a hard beginning because there were some times where players would get mad at each other in the beginning.”

Badger was asked about how the Livermore game felt: “It was definitely fun, we are playing kids we have known and we have hung out before, talk to them during the game. Just seeing how their team plays. That game really meant a lot on how we go on from now. We want to keep winning these games and not only have won in freshman year.”

The JV team had put up amazing scores on all the teams they faced this year. They have kept an undefeated season once again and are calling themselves 20-0. They are led by Coach Smith and their quarterback Tristan Ti’a. They also took a win against the Cowboys, the final score being 42-0.

Coach Smith was asked what he thought of beating the Cowboys and it being his first year as a coach: “It means a lot with winning rivalry games, it’s always a good thing to beat them. The community loves these games, whether it be the school community or outside of the school community. It has been exciting for the year coaching, especially where after school activities are really supported.”

Smith was asked about their season overall as well. “You know it all starts in the summer. We had activities that cultivated the family in the team. And we saw the kids know what it meant to come together, it all starts at the staff though. We as the staff need to model that family role,” said Smith.

Tristan Ti’a went on to talk about the players from week 1 to week 10. “We were really serious about keeping the JV name undefeated. After that Livermore game, we called ourselves 20-0, or we called the JV team 20-0. We did have some bug bumps in the season, we had players who weren’t taking it seriously and getting kicked off the team. But as the season went on, everyone was more disciplined. And if they weren’t the coaches would be there to put people in check,” said T’ia.

The last level of Matadors is the varsity team. This is as high as you can go in your high school career. They had a playoff game on November 11 at 7pm, where they faced Campolindo High School in the first round. The Matadors ended up losing that game 38-14, ending their season.

Coach Franco, the Mats defensive coach, was asked to talk about how the coaches handled the team and going from JV to varsity. “The coaches and I just had to make adjustments every week and we had to get better at that. We had to get better at being able to move our scheme around, especially when injuries were affecting the team. Just being able to meet our EBAL games was our priority. Nothing was really new to us coaches this year. We really just needed to be on top of making adjustments to the team and it was just longer games,” said Franco.

Jake Blake, one of the captains for the varsity team, was asked about the season and how the players handled it. “We just had to grow as a team. There were some growing pains in the team, because we did have a lot of juniors starting. But our coaches are great and have nothing but love for them. They had handled our situation with ease. This year definitely didn’t go how we wanted it to, there was a lot of hype for us but we just couldn’t step it up,” said Blake.

With the ending of those seasons, Granada can’t wait for the next year of Matadors football. At any level you can find great games, and fans should definitely come and support all levels of the team next year.